[AngryData]

What makes you think h is smart instead of a blubbering idiot that Mr Magoo his way through life? All the reports from people who knew him personally had very low regard for his intellegence, and that is even before taking into account his repeated public blunders.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What makes you think h is smart instead of a blubbering idiot that Mr Magoo his way through life?

The fact that he's President. Twice. He maneouvred himself into the most powerful seat in the world. Twice. I'm tremendously sceptical that someone stupid can wind up there like that. (Again, not necessarily intelligent. You don't need to be intelligent to clear the Republican field in 2016. You do need to be crafty.)

[direwolf20]

Did he manoeuvre himself, or did some other guy manoeuvre him so that guy could stay relatively hidden?

[scarecrowbob]

My assumption was that he didn't even intend to win the 2016 election but the ability to launder dark money is so appealing that his avarice combined with the sheer unlikability of HRC to create a perfect storm to blow him out of Florida.

[scarecrowbob]

That's certainly closer to my understanding of the guy. He really doesn't feel "smart" in any of the usual sense of the term.

It's entirely possible that you can be on the stupid side of Chesterton's fence (to abuse the metaphor) and take it down, causing all the expected havok, and then claim you're excelling at your goals because you just have a sociopathic approach to the world.

Sure, picking up Maduro was well executed... and then he has been replaced with (checks notes... ) "the Maduro Regime".

Yeah, that -screams- competence.